Decision making and the avoidance of cognitive demand
Open accessAbstract
Behavioral and economic theories have long maintained that actions are chosen so as to minimize demands for exertion or work, a principle sometimes referred to as the law of less work. The data supporting this idea pertain almost entirely to demands for physical effort. However, the same minimization principle has often been assumed also to apply to cognitive demand. The authors set out to evaluate the validity of this assumption. In 6 behavioral experiments, participants chose freely between courses of action associated with different levels of demand for controlled information processing. Together, the results of these experiments revealed a bias in favor of the less demanding course of action. The bias was obtained across a range of choice settings and demand manipulations and was not wholly attributable to strategic avoidance of errors, minimization of time on task, or maximization of the rate of goal achievement. It is remarkable that the effect also did not depend on awareness of the demand manipulation. Consistent with a motivational account, avoidance of demand displayed sensitivity to task incentives and covaried with individual differences in the efficacy of executive control. The findings reported, together with convergent neuroscientific evidence, lend support to the idea that anticipated cognitive demand plays a significant role in behavioral decision making.
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Not all decisions to offload cognitive processes follow cost-benefit considerations but may also be influenced by the current goals of the observers as well as their tendency to avoid demanding cognitive actions.
“However, not all decisions to offload cognitive processes follow cost–benefit considerations of different strategies but may also be influenced by the current goals of the observers (Weis & Wiese, 2019) as well as their tendency to avoid demanding cognitive actions (Ballard et al., 1997; Kool et al., 2010; Sachdeva & Gilbert, 2020).”
From Consequences of cognitive offloading: Boosting performance but diminishing memory (2021) · cites this paper as Kool et al., 2010
A processing cost bias is a broadly manifested feature of cognition in general.
“It is important to distinguish this view from the claims underlying UG-based theories, whereas UG, as standardly understood, includes inborn principles of grammar, a processing cost bias is a broadly manifested feature of cognition in general.”
From Natural syntax, artificial intelligence and language acquisition (2023) · cites this paper as [16]
The avoidance and minimization of cognitive demand is a fundamental principle of cognition.
“. . . the avoidance [and minimization] of cognitive demand is a fundamental principle of cognition . . .[15] (p. 2), citing [16]”
From Natural syntax, artificial intelligence and language acquisition (2023) · cites this paper as [16]
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Consequences of cognitive offloading: Boosting performance but diminishing memory
Grinschgl, S., Papenmeier, F., & Meyerhoff, H. S. (2021) · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1177/17470218211008060 · Cited by 147 · see citing works
“…cognitive processes follow cost–benefit considerations of different strategies but may also be influenced by the current goals of the observers (Weis & Wiese, 2019) as well as their tendency to avoid demanding cognitive actions (Ballard et al., 1997; Kool et al., 2010; Sachdeva & Gilbert, 2020).”
BackgroundHow Visibility and Divided Attention Constrain Social Contagion
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Adaptive effort investment in cognitive and physical tasks: A neurocomputational model
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Toward a Metacognitive Account of Cognitive Offloading
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- Authors
- Kool, W., McGuire, J. T., Rosen, Z. B., & Botvinick, M. M.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Columbia University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
- Published
- 2010
- Volume
- 139
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 665-682
- ISSN
- 0096-3445 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-2222
- PMC
- PMC2970648
- OpenAlex
- W2092813663
- Cited by
- 1,141
- References
- 97
- Citations by year
- 2026: 102 · 2025: 99 · 2024: 111 · 2023: 88 · 2022: 105 · 2021: 104 · 2020: 78 · 2019: 92 · 2018: 85 · 2017: 67 · 2016: 58 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 41 · 2013: 35 · 2012: 25
- FWCI
- 16.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Experimental Psychology General (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH062196)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- cognitive demand, decision-making, effort minimization, executive function, individual differences
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Attention, Cognition, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Male, Motivation, Neuropsychological Tests, Photic Stimulation, Psychomotor Performance, Surveys and Questionnaires, Reaction Time
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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